Last week, somebody broke into Gawker.com and stole 1.3 million account names, e-mail addresses, and passwords — and then posted all the booty on the Internet.
Your online security might not be at the top of your mind this time of year, but most likely you're doing more Internet shopping. In light of the Gawker break-in, take a few minutes to assess your passwords.

Also I am wondering if anyone that has been repeatedly using the same 'user name' in various posts, done a google search of that user name. Personally I was VERY surprised to see mine brought up, along with everything I had written in the posting. Silly me I didn't think that was totally public info. There is no way to ever get rid of it either.

However, anyone know of a good program to keep passwords?
What I'm specifically looking for is a program that when you click on a "log-in" box or something to that effect, it copies your username and password from it's database and puts it into the appropriate boxes.

I tried several (one of which I think was KeePass), but you still have to manually open the program and then copy and paste your username and password into the web site's log-in boxes. Too much of a hassle!

However, anyone know of a good program to keep passwords?
What I'm specifically looking for is a program that when you click on a "log-in" box or something to that effect, it copies your username and password from it's database and puts it into the appropriate boxes.

I tried several (one of which I think was KeePass), but you still have to manually open the program and then copy and paste your username and password into the web site's log-in boxes. Too much of a hassle!

This is why I use disposable email addresses for all web registrations, web purchases, domain registrations, etc. I probably have more than 200 email addresses right now. I use www.spamex.com which costs $10/year for up to 500 email addresses and up to 500kb attachments. They have a bookmarklet which you can drag to your browser links bar to make it easy to login and create/delete/list/manage your email addresses. As you can imagine for a $10/yearly charge, help/support is pretty marginal. The site rarely has problems and email flows well w/o delays.

P.S. I have no relation to this website other than being a satisfied user.

1. Different passwords for all sites except the strictly temporary or one-use sites. You must use a password manager to generate random passwords and store them. I prefer Passpack, but LastPass is probably also good.

For the one-use sites just use some simple password you can remember...it doesn't matter later if it's hacked. For email addresses I use mailinator.com which accepts any email name you dream up, and it's not required to create it first. Some login sites reject the mailinator.com domain, but they have alternative domain names that work.

2. Use a few passwords you remember. Make at least a couple somewhat difficult. Use those for the most important sites: banks, your main email login, etc. Use the other 2 or 3 passwords for less important sites. If they're hacked, at least your financial password is safe.

The fault here lies as much with the web sites as the users. It irritates the hell out of me to have to log in with a password to trivial sites such as this. People just get sick of this password, password, password, rubbish and can't be bothered to keep thinking up (and forgetting) new ones.

Just think, what is so special about your web site that I need a password? Not much.

My bank site and credit cards are another matter. I use alphanumeric individual passwords for each and they usually have some kind of additional security features built in. My bank even requires I use a random number generator like a hand calculator with my card inserted to make any payment.

On the other hand these trivial sites like Gawker, whatever that is, why bother?

Incidentally Woody, I just bought your Win 7 for Dummies book. Got a couple of points to take up with you but that's another day.

I did not think that I had been Gawkered, but I did check both of my e-mail addresses. Both were OK. By the way, I am no longer using any anti-virus program. I started with Windows 95 about 16 years ago, and no viruses were found as I changed to XP Pro, although I used different anti-virus programs most of the time. For me it seemed like a waste of time using anti-virus programs. Also, I do not completely trust the password programs. I make my own passwords just blindly touching keys on my keyboard until I have saved about 10 or 12 letters and or numbers. I save them to use whenever visit that site again

I checked and I was Gawkered, but I Lifehacker was the only site that I used their generated password so it was the only site that I needed to worry about. I use KeePass for my password storage and retrieval.

I checked and found that I also had been Gawkered by signing up for the Lifehacker Newsletter, which I cancelled a couple of weeks later. As I never used a password, can I assume that I have nothing to worry about as only my user-name and email address was compromised? Roy Brown

For safety, in your case I would change the password associated with that e-mail account. Just in case.